Nothing will have taken place: Negativity, space, and the apocalypse

International Conference Nothing Matters: On Negative Objects, Spaces, and Relations, Bauhaus University Weimar, 15 June 2024

This talk addresses the relationship between space, negativity, and apocalypses. Deserted landscapes, abandoned cities, and all kinds of emptied spaces are pivotal when it comes to narrations of the world after its end. Apart from this, there is a second, more radical form of encounter with nothingness underlying the apocalyptic imagination. Taking cometary impacts and the sun’s death as examples, I show how the end of Earth can also be understood as a total breakdown of the spatial order itself. Through this dual consideration of the spatial implications of apocalypses, I seek to stress the role of investigating different matters of negativity.

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